Kernel service interruption via unsupported page-cache split
Published Aug 7, 2024 · Updated May 11, 2026
Improper page-cache handling in Linux allows local users to interrupt service through shmem operations on affected ARM64 systems. The mm/shmem code enables PMD-sized page cache when HPAGE_PMD_ORDER exceeds MAX_PAGECACHE_ORDER, leaving xarray unable to split the entry. The demonstrated path requires an ARM64 kernel with 64 KB base pages and a later shmem split, producing xarray errors and a kernel warning.
Summary
What happened
Improper page-cache handling in Linux allows local users to interrupt service through shmem operations on affected ARM64 systems. The mm/shmem code enables PMD-sized page cache when HPAGE_PMD_ORDER exceeds MAX_PAGECACHE_ORDER, leaving xarray unable to split the entry. The demonstrated path requires an ARM64 kernel with 64 KB base pages and a later shmem split, producing xarray errors and a kernel warning.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2024-42241
- Published
- Aug 7, 2024
- Updated
- May 11, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-770, T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 7, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 11, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=5.17
- Affected versionversion=6b24ca4a1a8d4ee3221d6d44ddbb99f542e4bda3 <93893eacb372b0a4a30f7de6609b08c3ba6c4fd9
- Affected versionversion=6b24ca4a1a8d4ee3221d6d44ddbb99f542e4bda3 <9fd154ba926b34c833b7bfc4c14ee2e931b3d743
- Affected versionversion=6b24ca4a1a8d4ee3221d6d44ddbb99f542e4bda3 <cd25208ca9b0097f8e079d692fc678f36fdbc3f9
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What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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